Letter from the Chief Inspector of General Practice

We carried out an announced comprehensive inspection at Alvanley Family Practice on 10 August 2016. Overall the practice is rated as good.

Our key findings across all the areas we inspected were as follows:

• The newly formed management team had worked with the whole staff team to identify a clear vision which had quality and safety as its top priority. The strategy to deliver this vision had been produced with staff and stakeholders and was regularly reviewed and discussed with staff. The practice values of respect, openness, accountability and reasonableness were driven by the management team and embraced by all practice staff.

• The practice had strong and visible clinical and managerial leadership and governance arrangements.

• Staff understood and fulfilled their responsibilities to raise concerns and report incidents and near misses. All opportunities for learning from internal and external incidents were maximised.

• Staff assessed patients’ needs and delivered care in line with current evidence based guidance. Staff had the skills, knowledge and experience to deliver effective care and treatment. The practice had a strong commitment to supporting staff training and development.

• Feedback from patients about their care was consistently and strongly positive. Patients described the GPs and staff as caring and professional.

• The practice worked closely with other organisations and with the local community in planning how services were provided to ensure they met people’s needs.

• The practice had good facilities and was well equipped to treat patients and meet their needs.

We saw two areas of outstanding practice:

• The practice had been unsuccessful in getting volunteers for a patient participation group. As an alternative it had been successful in using social media as a communication strategy to engage with their patient population. The practice had established a Facebook page. This provided patients with an opportunity to keep themselves up to date and have their say about the service they received. The Facebook page had over 400 likes. Facebook statistical information identified that the practice responded to a Facebook posts typically within an hour.

• The practice had organised and facilitated new activities for their own patients such as Healthy Walks and a support and advice drop in centre at the practice (Healthy Stockport) for both their own patients and other patients living within the local community.

The areas where the provider should make improvement are:

• Establish a programme of regular clinical audit and re-audit or quality improvement.

• Develop practice policies for the duty of candour and safeguarding adults.

Professor Steve Field (CBE FRCP FFPH FRCGP) 

Chief Inspector of General Practice

We reviewed the information available to us about Alvanley Family Practice on 26 April 2019. We did not find evidence of significant changes to the quality of service being provided since the last inspection. As a result, we decided not to inspect the surgery at this time. We will continue to monitor this information about this service throughout the year and may inspect the surgery when we see evidence of potential changes.